A former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Ayikoi Otoo, is leading a group that has sued the Electoral Commission over the creation of 45 new constituencies.
The EC boss Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan last week told Parliament in a closed-door session that following the recent release of the final figures of the 2010 population census, his outfit will add 45 new constituencies. He said measures have been put in place to ensure that no region is discriminated against during the creation of the districts.
However, lawyer Otoo said the EC’s move is illegal because there is a case pending before the High Court challenging the same issue.
“Under our Constitution – Article 47 (3) provides that the boundaries of each constituency must be such that the number of inhabitants in a constituency is as nearly as possible equal to the population quota. It is our view that this population quota is not being adequately addressed,” he said.
“Now that the census figures have been published, you’ll find out that Greater Accra is the highest in terms of voter population. Yet, if you look at the number of constituencies we have in Accra it is only 27. If the population is well taken into account we think that Greater Accra should be going anywhere near 40 instead of 27,” Lawyer Otoo added.
He noted: “If you look at the Constitutional provision, it enjoins the Electoral Commission to by Constitutional Instrument make regulations for effective performance of its functions, yet the EC has never published any Constitutional Instrument by which they over the years have been reviewing and creating constituencies in Ghana.”
Under the yet to be created constituencies, the Ashanti Region will have eight new constituencies increasing the number from 39 to 47. Volta Region currently has 22, but will have 26 the same as Western Region, the report said.
The EC’s document revealed that Eastern Region will now have 33 as against the existing 28 whiles the Central Region gets four extra to shoot up to 23. The Greater Accra Region increased from 27-34, the report claimed.
In the Upper East two more constituencies have been created, putting the figure at 15, with the figure for Upper West Region increasing by one from 10-11.
The Northern Region increased from 26-31 with the Brong Ahafo also experiencing an increase of five constituencies from 24-29, it said.**
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